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West Indies ODI captain Dwayne Bravo has signed on as a development mentor and ambassador to Cricket Papua New Guinea. Bravo will be joined by team-mate Kemar Roach, and former captain, Richie Richardson during the course of this week to help groom cricketers in PNG through coaching clinics and other circuits.”Advancing the game of cricket in developing nations of the world is something I have always wanted to become involved in,” said Bravo. “A cricketer today is a role model to millions and I wanted to use this opportunity to pass my knowledge, skills and expertise onto promising new talent and use my own experiences and leadership aptitude to motivate youth across the world.”Cricket PNG Chief and former Australia cricketer Greg Campbell was looking forward to the trio’s participation in the efforts to better cricket in the region. “Papua New Guinea is a cricket-mad nation and our team has historically always looked up to West Indies cricketers,” he said. “In fact, the West Indies were the first international team to tour PNG back in 1975 and our cricketers look to emulate their entertaining style of play and their spirit of the game. The atmosphere and excitement in the air that Dwayne Bravo, Kemar Roach and Richie Richardson are coming to town, has been astonishing.”As ambassador, Bravo will make sponsored visits across schools, academies and rural communities throughout greater Port Moresby to assist with junior participation programs and use cricket as a platform to motivate and inspire the youth. Bravo’s inputs will come in handy, especially on the back of the PNG Under-19s beating Vanuatu Under-19s in the final of the East Asia-Pacific Championship in July.Bravo will also act as a mentor to Papua New Guinean cricketers and help them with their efforts to acclimatise on the world stage and catch the eye of talent scouts of professional T20 franchises around the world.PNG has enjoyed previous attention from former Test cricketers with Andy Bichel having enjoyed a successful two-year tenure as coach before stepping down in 2011. He was succeeded by Brad Hogg, who relinquished the post following his recall to the Australian T20 side. Former England wicketkeeper and PNG-born Geraint Jones was part of their campaign during the 2012 World T20 qualifiers in the UAE.PNG, who are ranked 19th in the world, will participate as a national team in the inaugural South Australian Cricket Association (SACA) T20 Premier League that begins this month. They will then travel to Dubai in November to take part in the World T20 Qualifiers, where a top six finish would see them qualify for the World T20 in Bangladesh. In January, PNG will fight for one of the remaining two spots in the World Cup 2015 at the Qualifier tournament in New Zealand.

Even though Zimbabwe dominated most parts of the third day by taking a 64-run lead and then building on it, three wickets in the last nine balls of the day brought the Pakistanis back and has given both the sides chances of winning the Test. Pakistan’s bowling coach, Mohammad Akram, said they were confident of getting a few wickets by keeping their line and lengths tight to build the pressure.”Our plan was to keep it tight,” he said. “We knew that if we did that, at some point the door would open and then we could push through it.”Zimbabwe had taken a first-innings lead in the first Test too but they had to bat last which put added pressure on them when they were set a target of 342 with a little more than a day left. This time, Pakistan will be batting last and are already 185 runs behind with six Zimbabwe wickets remaining. The pitch, Akram said, has not been causing difficulty till now and said it is still a “good wicket” for both bowlers and batsmen.”So far the pitch has played well,” he said. “Everyone was thinking there would be too many snakes in it but it has been good for batting, once you are in. Stroke-making was not easy but there is still something in it for batsmen and bowlers and it’s been a good wicket.”

‘Not a bad decision to open with Utseya’

Two of the four wickets Zimbabwe lost on the third day were of bowlers as Vusi Sibanda could not open due to illness and Prosper Utseya accompanied Tino Mawoyo at the top of the order in the second innings. Panyangara, the nightwatchman who fell for a duck, said Utseya was the right replacement to open with, instead of sending another top-order batsman. Even though Utseya scored only 5, Panyangara defended the decision of openng with him.
“He [Sibanda] was off the field after lunch because he was not feeling well,” Panyangara said. “The team decided Prosper would be the best one to go and open for us. If you look at it now, it wasn’t that bad. As much as we didn’t want to lose those wickets at the end, we are still in a good position because two of the guys who are out are not top order batsmen.”

Tinashe Panyangara also said the pitch had not deteriorated much so far but hoped that it would on the last two days. “I hope so,” Panyangara said with a laugh when asked if he thought the pitch would get worse. “Every day we’ve thought it would get worse and it hasn’t really. But maybe on the final two days it will. It has been playing up a bit but I wouldn’t say it’s got much worse so far.”Just like Pakistan who had plans of bowling tight, Panyangara said they had planned to bowl around the off stump to keep Pakistan’s scoring rate down. Pakistan had started the day at 163 for 3 but collapsed to 230 after lunch, losing their last six wickets for 19 runs. Brian Vitori, who had not been picked for the first Test, claimed the last three wickets in two consecutive overs to take his first five-for in only his fourth Test.”Our plan was to stay around off stump all the time and keep the run-scoring down,” Panyangara said. “If you look at the run-scoring especially after lunch, they never scored at more than three an over. We knew if we did that right, we would get wickets.”Despite Pakistan’s lower-order collapse, Panyangara said they would need “a day at the least ” to bowl Pakistan out in the fourth innings after setting them a target. With six wickets in hand, he said they did not have any target in mind and would try to get “as many as possible” before bowling in the fourth innings.

Darren Stevens has been charged with failing to report a corrupt approach as part of the ICC’s Anti-Corruption and Security Unit (ACSU) investigation into events during the 2013 Bangladesh Premier League.Stevens, the 37-year-old Kent allrounder, has not been charged with any corrupt activity itself and is therefore free to continue playing. Stevens is one of nine individuals charged with various offences; seven for fixing and two for not reporting approaches.In a statement, Stevens said: “I confirm that I have been charged by the ICC with a failure to report a corrupt approach made to me during BPL2 in February this year. I have not been involved in any corrupt activity and have not been charged with any and I am cooperating with the ICC and ACSU in their investigation and prosecution of the corruption charges in matters relating to the BPL.”I am totally against any corruption in cricket and would never do anything other than perform to the best of my ability in any game. ICC have not suspended me from playing and I remain willing and able to play for Kent in all fixtures if selected. As the charge against me is now the subject of disciplinary proceedings I can make no further comment with regard to them at this stage.”The charges, which followed an investigation carried out by the ACSU, relate to an alleged conspiracy within the Dhaka Gladiators franchise to engage in match-fixing and spot-fixing during the tournament, as well as failures by individuals to report approaches made to them to be involved in the conspiracy.The news will raise more questions about the viability of the BPL. Many players are still awaiting payment for their involvement in the 2013 season.

Cheteshwar Pujara has said that exposure to the one-day format at the international level would help him change people’s perception about him being only a longer-format player. Pujara is part of India’s squad that is scheduled to play five ODIs in Zimbabwe starting July 24 and is likely to make his ODI debut during the series.”I think I have the basics, now it’s just about shifting the gears at the right time, and that comes with more matches at the international level,” Pujara told the . “My technique is correct. Yeah, maybe at times, you need to learn more shots and you need to play according to the situation, but that comes with experience.”Pujara made a seamless entry into Test cricket after years of piling up runs in first-class cricket, and this time, the selectors have also put their faith on his equally impressive List A record and added him to the ODI squad. In 61 List A matches, Pujara has scored 2735 runs at an average of 56.97. He gave a glimpse of his talent during last year’s Challenger Trophy, smashing 158*, 124* and 79 at a strike rate of 107. During his Test hundreds against Australia earlier this year, he maintained high strike rates too despite taking time to settle in, an approach, Pujara feels, would help in overseas conditions.”With the two new balls, it does make a difference, and you have to be technically correct,” he said. “If you are playing on a flat wicket, then it’s a different story altogether, but when you are playing overseas, you can’t play your shots from the beginning, and you need wickets at the end to accelerate. And with the new rules, you have five fielders inside (the circle), so even acceleration becomes easier once the ball is old. But you need to have wickets in hand.”Pujara will also lead the India A side in South Africa after the Zimbabwe tour and he said that the experience during the tour would be key ahead of India’s Test tour to South Africa later this year.”I have been to South Africa. I have played two Test matches, so I have some experience, but the A tour will be very helpful, for me and a few other players who will be part of the Indian team in November-December,” he said. “It will really help to score some runs and get some experience in these conditions before the main series.”

ScorecardMichael Lumb accelerated through the afternoon and evening after seeing off the new ball•Getty Images

Quite frequently during the English summer there descends upon a Championship crowd a near silence that betokens complete content. Such an atmosphere could be discerned at Scarborough at around 3pm on the first afternoon of this match.Having waited all morning for slight drizzle to abate and for the ground to be dried, the supporters of Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and otherwise watched closely as Andrew Gale’s attack strove to justify his decision to bowl first. The toss, however, had been made under grey skies and with rain threatening; by the time Alex Hales and Ed Cowan opened their side’s innings the weather had faired up nicely and we had bright sunshine by mid-afternoon. At close of play, Chris Read’s men had secured the advantage and Michael Lumb had made his first century against his former team since his departure at the end of the 2006 season.Indeed, this was a day for Lumb to savour. Coming to the wicket in the first over, he added 101 for the second wicket in 40 overs with the arguably even more painstaking Cowan. And when Cowan had been caught at slip off Steve Patterson, Lumb dominated his partnership with James Taylor, Nottinghamshire’s No. 4 contributing only 12 of the 76 runs the pair added before bad light sliced another nine overs off the day’s allocation.The only moment when the home side captured an initiative came when Hales flashed irresponsibly at Ryan Sidebottom’s fifth ball of the innings and was caught behind for a duck. This continued what has been a very bleak couple of months for the Nottinghamshire opener, who has made only 137 runs in 11 Championship innings and a mere 29 in his last eight. The temptation to blast his way out of such form – as he attempted – must be very great. It is, however, a policy wreathed in risk and further disappointment.After Hales’s dismissal, Cowan and Lumb batted with unremitting care, 11 runs being scored in the first seven overs and 36 in the first 19. But the gradual shift to the more attacking style of batsmanship adopted by Lumb in the last hour or so of the day was built upon the intensity of the very hard cricket played in the afternoon session.The run rate rarely edged above two runs an over as Cowan and Lumb sought to see off the new ball and quell the Yorkshire bowlers at their freshest. More expansive shots – Lumb’s straight drive off Sidebottom, Cowan’s crisp cut off Moin Ashraf – were rare events indeed. It was this battle which the Scarborough spectators plainly relished. There was regular applause but nothing too gushing. And there was certainly no chanting: Yorkshire supporters may indeed be something of an army and the odd one might even be the merest trifle eccentric but they really have no interest in proclaiming this fact repetitively to the world in general.Gale’s placed his reliance almost totally upon his seamers; Adil Rashid bowled one over in the first 59 and only five in the 71 that comprised the day’s play. The four-strong Yorkshire pace attack did not let their captain down but the sparing use of the legspinner only adds weight to the view that he is now perceived as a batting allrounder.Such a judgement was being freely expressed by the partisans at North Marine Road, many of whom will have seen Rashid’s trio of hundreds in the last three games. Such debates are an essential element of life for county cricket’s followers, many of whom delight in their trips to outgrounds on the coast. “Scarborough at Festival time is first-class cricket on holiday,” wrote the great JM Kilburn. This may not be the festival but the point still holds.For it is the littoral truth that county cricket does like to be beside the seaside. Grounds such as Weston-super-Mare, Eastbourne and Lytham may no longer be visited and Hastings is no more but others – Swansea, Southport, Colwyn Bay – still host games fairly regularly, while Hove is a treasured venue of many neutrals.Then there is Scarborough, which is hosting its 414th first-class match Indubitably established as Yorkshire’s second home, the ground is a member of a curious aristocracy of outgrounds, a group which includes Liverpool and Cheltenham, whose place in the five-month poem of the English season is secure. And on the first day of this game Lumb added a few finely-turned stanzas of his own to that ever-changing verse.

Zimbabwe captain Brendan Taylor said his side’s failure to start well with the bat and ball had cost them the second Twenty20 against Bangladesh. The hosts went down by 34 runs mainly due to the partnership between Shakib Al Hasan and Tamim Iqbal, and later due to the loss of two wickets during their innings in the batting Powerplay.”They got off the mark quicker than us today,” Taylor said. “They approached their batting better than us and bowled better in the first six overs. They were going at tens, we were going at sevens.”Zimbabwe had pulled off a close win in the first Twenty20 on Saturday, but were missing the same enthusiasm in the second and final game. Shakib and Tamim added 82 for the second wicket, and though Zimbabwe fought back with the ball, they batted in fits and starts during the chase and ended up losing by a big margin.”I don’t think we were relaxed. I think we didn’t execute as well as we had done on Saturday [in the first Twenty20],” Taylor said. “They scored quite freely as we couldn’t put the ball in the right areas. We pulled it back nicely towards the end, and we thought that 169 was very gettable. Unfortunately, we lost crucial wickets at the wrong time.”Taylor was pleased with his side’s performance against Bangladesh in the Tests as well as the limited-overs games. Zimbabwe beat Bangladesh by a whopping 335 runs in the first Test and later went on to win the ODIs after losing the first game of the three-match series.”We are very pleased with how the ODI series went. Our record in Bulawayo against Bangladesh isn’t good, so we can take a lot of confidence out of that. We can also hold our heads high for drawing the T20 series.”Our players were very hungry in this series and we needed to put up our best performance after the West Indies tour. We were determined to do well at home, where we have had good results in the past.”One of the positive outcomes for Zimbabwe was the manner in which they kept Bangladesh in check. “I think Bangladesh will be pretty disappointed, I don’t think they played their best cricket,” Taylor said. “We saw Shakib come good in the last game. The likes of Tamim and Mushfiqur would be pretty disappointed. They’re quality players, so I am sure they’d bounce back stronger. We knew we were going to go up against a confident Bangladesh side that did well against Sri Lanka. We executed our plans really well.”

James Sutherland, the Cricket Australia chief executive, has spoken for the first time about the “homework” fiasco that enveloped the national team on a horrid tour of India, stating his displeasure at how the squad’s discipline broke down to the point that four players including then vice-captain Shane Watson were suspended from a Test match.At the time of the suspensions, which also ruled James Pattinson, Usman Khawaja and Mitchell Johnson out of contention for the third Test of the series in Mohali in March, Sutherland was overseas and conspicuous by his absence from CA’s public response to the episode, leaving the team performance manager Pat Howard to field questions. However Sutherland told ESPNcricinfo that he had since gained a deep understanding of the issues at play, and stressed to team management that such a scenario could not be allowed to unfold again.”My starting point with all of that is personally I’m disappointed we got to that stage,” Sutherland said. “I now have a pretty in-depth understanding of where and how it got to there and I’m still disappointed that it happened in the circumstances when it got to there and how it got to there.”I’m supportive of the decisions that were made at the time and I’m a really firm believer in the fact that those decisions will ultimately stand us in good stead as we build to sustained performance at the highest level. I think it’s pretty well understood internally what I think about it, and the need for us to ensure those things are dealt with better before they ever get to that stage.”While Sutherland was hesitant to attribute the suspensions and their prelude to any one major factor, he conceded that communication within the team had broken down, leaving players unaware of how badly the team’s captain Michael Clarke, coach Mickey Arthur and team manager Gavin Dovey felt that standards had slipped. It was an area the absence of the retired Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey was keenly felt.”It would be dangerous to narrow it down to one or two things,” Sutherland said. “It was a culmination of a whole lot of things, and to pinpoint it as being communication of people not necessarily understanding where they were … yes that is one of the reasons no doubt. But there’s a whole lot of others as well I think.”Issues of leadership and character within Australian cricket had been on Sutherland’s mind well before the events of India, and he would like to see greater emphasis placed on the education of young players so that their responsibilities to teammates and the game as a whole are better understood, alongside their burgeoning skills as batsmen and bowlers.”Clearly we want to be building or developing the best players and part of that is developing players who are not only capable in a cricketing sense,” Sutherland said. “They are strong of character, they’re highly resilient, they’re able to adapt, and they have all of these character traits. To some extent you’re born with those and to some extent they’re circumstantial according to your environment and also they can be developed.”That’s part of our challenge as a sport in developing our best talent is to do that even better in this day and age, understanding the variability of cricket today, the need to adapt and the need to be resilient, to get through tough conditions in a foreign country you might never have visited before. All of those things are part of character.”That comes back to our point about sending more younger players away for longer periods to learn what it’s like to try to fight through a six-week tour when you can’t make a run and fight your way through it. Phil Hughes in India, it wasn’t great to see him early on in the tour, but the way he fought through that tour of India I thought was fantastic, just the sort of stuff we want to see from our players when they’re down.”Sutherland said plans were in the works to extend CA’s remit to educate players at an earlier age, the better to prepare them for a game that is now split across three formats and a wide variety of attitudes and career paths, from the Baggy Green ideal now co-opted by the Commonwealth Bank as the new major sponsor of the Test team, to the individualism and money upfront mentality of the IPL, BBL and other Twenty20 leagues.”One of the things we will want to do over the next couple of years is identify and work with that talent at an even younger age than we have in the past,” Sutherland said. “We’ve tended to let the cream rise to the top in recent times, but perhaps we need to nurture those high potential players a little bit earlier, and develop their other character beyond their cricket abilities and prepare them for what’s next.”It’s not a lesson out of India, it’s something we’ve been talking about for quite some time, certainly I’ve been speaking to Pat Howard about it ever since he started [in 2011]. We’ve been talking about nurturing our young, talented teenagers a little bit earlier than we have in the past. Some other sports do that very well and I’d like to see cricket doing a lot more of that in the next little while.”

ScorecardJames Tomlinson caused havoc with the ball•Getty Images

James Tomlinson took four quick wickets as Leicestershire were forced to follow-on on day two against Hampshire.Left-arm pace bowler Tomlinson exploited the swinging bowling conditions with great skill as Leicestershire were bowled out for 143 in response to Hampshire’s first innings total of 454 for 7 declared. They will therefore begin day three 311 runs behind their hosts.Leicestershire openers Michael Thornely and Niall O’Brien had to bat out the last two overs of the day without scoring when following on but the damage had already been done. Tomlinson made the ball move both ways to finish with 4 for 23 while another left-armer, Chris Wood took 3 for 30 as Leicestershire collapsed from 31 without loss.Earlier Hampshire had resumed on 286 for 4 and had little difficulty in adding a further 168 in 39 overs for the loss of Sean Ervine, James Vince and Wood. Ervine departed at 308, bowled by Matthew Hoggard, but Vince was in imperious form, reaching his century with his 17th boundary off Shiv Thakor as Hampshire built a formidable total.Vince and newcomer Adam Wheater added 104 for the sixth wicket in 29 overs before Vince lofted debut-making pace bowler Ollie Freckingham into the deep where Thakor held the catch. Vince faced 236 balls for his 148 and struck 21 boundaries, but even then the punishment was not over.Wheater, signed in the close season from Essex, blasted a rapid unbeaten 56 and Wood took advantage of a demoralised attack to make a swift 28 before being bowled by Jigar Naik to prompt the declaration.Thornely and O’Brien gave no hint of the tribulations to come with an opening stand of 31 but when Wood had O’Brien caught at first slip by Ervine, the batting was processional.Tomlinson’s first victim was Thornely, followed in rapid succession by Ned Eckersley and Josh Cobb to make inexperienced Leicestershire 64 for 4, a position from which they never recovered. Only captain Ramnaresh Sarwan hung around long enough to make an impression, hitting five fours in his top score of 25 before he was bowled by Ervine.At 118 for 9 Leicestershire looked doomed but then last pair Hoggard and Alex Wyatt attempted to bring some respectability to the score with an aggressive stand of 25 before Tomlinson returned to claim his fourth wicket when Hoggard drove to third slip.Hampshire fielders surrounded the Leicestershire openers when the follow-on was enforced but they survived to the close.

Stuart Broad was a tired man after his return to first-class cricket but was feeling positive about how his body was holding up as he aims to regain his spot in the Test team for Dunedin.The second day against a New Zealand XI in Queenstown was Broad’s first outing in the longer format since the second Test against India, in Mumbai, after which he was dropped following two wicketless games in that series. The recurrence of a heel problem that had hampered him early on the tour then then forced him to return home.He has previously admitted he will need to manage the issue throughout his career but he is hoping to revive his Test career with the aid of new, specially designed boots, which aim to ease the pressure on the troublesome area, and this was the opportunity for a day of multiple spells to test his endurance.He was the pick of the England pace attack, taking 1 for 35 in 15 overs, and maintained good pace throughout on a slow pitch. His nearest rival for the third fast-bowling spot, Graham Onions, had a poor day as he failed to strike during 16 expensive overs. When Broad had Carl Cachopa caught at second slip after lunch, it was his first first-class wicket since dismissing Dale Steyn at Lord’s in August.”I’ll sleep well tonight. It always takes a bit of getting used to,” he said. “But I got through the spells pretty well; it’s an encouraging sign. The build-up throughout this tour has been really good for me, starting with Twenty20 cricket, going into the one-day format and now we have pretty much four back-to-back games.”So the workload is going to be tough. But you just need to manage that well, and I feel like I’m doing that at the moment.”Test match cricket is going to be the toughest test of Broad’s heel, where there is no opportunity to ease off and, although perhaps not in this series, long back-to-back days in the field are a possibility.”The heel injury is still around. It’s going to be around for quite a while,” he said. “I do need to manage that. It still gets a bit tender towards the back-end of spells. But that’s to be expected.”I didn’t feel it too much today, and I hope it will pull up pretty well tomorrow. My action feels really nice at the moment. I feel like I’m hitting the crease hard, and getting some good bounce.”Hamish Rutherford, who made 90, praised the work of Broad and was impressed with the England attack even in the absence of James Anderson and Steven Finn who were rested ahead of the Test series.”Stuart Broad bowled very well all day, he kept running at decent clip,” he said. “Woakes also bowled well and it was my first chance to have a look at Swann, so it was very pleasing to spend some time against him.”Although the innings virtually assures Rutherford of a Test debut next week, he refused to be drawn into such a discussion. “I was just trying to bat as I usually do and win each ball. I’ll be completely honest, I didn’t even think about it. At the end of the day, the longer I spend in the middle that sort of stuff takes care of itself.”

Looking out across a sunny County Ground in Taunton earlier today Somerset chief executive Peter Anderson reflected on England’s defeat in the first Test match of the Ashes tour.He told me:"In messages back to the club both Andy Caddick and Marcus Trescothick have expressed their complete disappointment over the result and don’t offer up any excuses."The chief continued: "I am backing both of our players and we should not be drawn into stinging criticism after only one match. Australia are a very good team, but there are still four matches to go.”He continued: “The time for criticism if any is warranted is at the end of the series and not after the first Test."Regarding the Cidermen’s paceman he added : "With all of the bowling injuries, England are very lucky indeed to have Andy Caddick who never shirks anything."